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Ground Robot Evacuates Severely Wounded Ukrainian Soldier in First-of-Its-Kind Mission
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26-year-old Andrii Krul was seriously wounded on the front line in the summer of 2025. Because evacuating him by vehicle would have put other soldiers at risk, his comrades used a ground robotic system to pull him out of the battlefield.
This was reported by the First Medical Association of Lviv on November 13.
Andrii, originally from the village of Tatariv in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, had long dreamed of becoming a rescuer. After joining Ukraine’s State Emergency Service, he later volunteered for the Armed Forces and became a scout with the 108th Separate Battalion “Da Vinci Wolves.” He served in the Pokrovsk direction, where he sustained a life-altering injury in the summer of 2025.
“We were moving from zero positions in the morning and running from FPV drones. But one still caught up with us and that’s how I was wounded. I remember my leg hurt the most. My arm was torn off and then I temporarily lost my vision—at first, I couldn’t see anything at all,” he recalled.
A Russian drone strike left Andrii partially blind, without an arm, and with extensive trauma to his leg. With Russian drones circling overhead, evacuating him by car was too dangerous for both the crew and the wounded soldier. His brothers-in-arms instead chose an NRK ground robotic system, normally used to deliver supplies or evacuate casualties, according to the association.
“This is very impressive technology. It was created to save lives. And it’s really much safer than using a vehicle. Yes, there’s still danger, but if there is a chance to evacuate this way—it’s a chance to stay alive,” Andrii said.
After stabilization on the frontline, he spent ten days in a hospital in Dnipro before being transferred to the UNBROKEN center in Lviv for treatment, rehabilitation, and future prosthetics.
“The patient was brought to us by evacuation train. He arrived with an external fixation device on his left shin, a tibial fracture, and an amputation of his left upper limb. It’s hard to say how long Andrii’s recovery will take, but everything is progressing well,” said Yaroslav Zelizko, Deputy Head of the UNBROKEN Center.
According to the Medical Association, doctors are now working to restore function to his injured leg and improve his eyesight—he currently sees with only one eye. Several surgeries still lie ahead, but Andris has already begun learning to use a prosthetic arm.
Earlier, two Ukrainian volunteers trekked more than 11 kilometers to evacuate 13-year-old Liuba, her pregnant dog, and an elderly neighbor from Rodynske in the Donetsk region. The three had been hiding in the basement of a destroyed home, and the girl’s parents had been missing for more than a week.
